0:00
Alright. Good morning, church. How are we? Good to see you. You made it here.
0:05
I trust that there'll be more people coming on in. Why don't you, why don't you stand up with me and and, let's sing out to our Lord. I've got a a verse that's kind of been ringing in my head, and it's from first Timothy one seventeen. It says, all honor and glory to God forever and ever. He is the eternal king.
0:23
The unseen one who never dies, he alone is God. That is why we're here. That's why we're worshiping. Before the world was made before the world was made before you spoke it to be. You were the king of kings.
0:59
Yeah. You were. Yeah. You were. And now you're reigning still enthroned above all things.
1:07
Angels and saints cry out. We join them as we sing glory to God. Glory to God. Glory to God forever. Alright.
1:42
Creator God, you gave me breath. Creator God, you gave me breath so that I
2:47
few announcements this morning. To begin with, we've got Monday nights. That's happening. Monday nights is happening down the hall in the fellowship hall. Meal, music, and a message every Monday night at 06:00.
3:00
That happens. What are what's this week, Carl?
3:03
Yep. So tomorrow is the kingdom of God. Start small, keeps growing and growing and growing bigger. We're a part of that. So here we go.
3:11
Amen. Monday, tomorrow.
3:12
From Luke. Alright. We also have Awana that meets at the same time. The Awana Kids program. You see the big circle on the floor?
3:20
That's not a helicopter pad. That is for Awana kids to play games around in this sanctuary. It starts at 06:00. We pour. Actually, I don't.
3:29
I'm down there playing the bass in the band but there are a lot of volunteers in this room who love Jesus who are pouring scripture into the minds to reach the heart of this kid's generation. So Awana is a great program because kids matter to God. So youth group is happening on Tuesday night. That is Tuesday night, 06:30 to eight. Both middle school and high school are meeting here at the church, and they roam about.
3:56
They start down there sometimes. They usually end up in the youth room downstairs. There is a daddy daughter dance that is March 10. That's next Saturday, five to eight here at First Baptist right here. This is a very versatile room.
4:10
I don't know if you all realize that, but as soon as Sunday is over, the chairs go against the wall and we use this room for all kinds of stuff all week long. So the daddy daughter dance, five to eight. It's $12 here at First Baptist next week and that's Mark and his daughter in that picture right there. There is still going on. The baby bottle campaign.
4:29
You see the bassinet out in the in the sanctuary full of baby bottles. You are welcome to take one of those, fill it with cash, change, checks, whatever you want to fill them with, and bring them back to Turning Point. That's one of their fundraisers that they do. We're glad to support that. Guatemala mission trip is happening.
4:47
We have right now 34 people registered to go to Guatemala somewhere towards the end of March, beginning of April for a mission trip at the Hope of Life International Camp the first week of April. We are going to be getting together, and we will let you know, team. We will let you know when that's going to happen. There are still a couple of things that are in a raffle situation. One of them is a Mangelson photograph that's that is displayed down at the end of the hall just before the Monday night, our fellowship hall room.
5:17
That is being raffled off for $20 a ticket, and the snowmobile that parked out front is also being raffled off. If you'd like a chance at either one of those, just let one of us know and we will handle that. We have a spaghetti dinner coming up Friday, March 16, and I think that's the last of the Guatemala fundraisers. You could see the bulletin for more details, and I have one more announcement that I'm not going to do. Anne, would you come up and bring em in.
5:45
Yeah.
5:46
Okay. Good morning, everybody. So, my name is Anne Stalker and ladies, I would like your attention because I would like to invite you to a study of the book of Job that's going to start tomorrow morning at 09:30 in Fellowship Hall. So Martin Luther, that German monk who sparked the Protestant Reformation five hundred years ago, said of the book of Job, more magnificent and sublime than any other book of scripture. The English poet, Lord Alfred Tennyson said of it, the greatest poem whether of ancient or modern literature.
6:26
So ladies, please come and discover for yourselves the beauty of this book. We're going to meet three times before spring break and three times after spring break. But here's the idea, let's journey together as we work in God's eternal truths and work out our salvation. Young moms, please let me know if you wanna come and bring your kids because we're gonna provide babysitting. So in this Job study, we'll examine age old questions such as, what can we say to God when he allows bad things to happen to good people?
7:02
Is it okay to ask why? Will he forgive us if we're angry with him? We're gonna use a study guide called engaging God's word, published by Community Bible Study. This guide helps discove helps all of us discover the peace of meeting the God of the Bible. We'll go verse by verse into the richness of scripture in ways that impact our heart and illumine our minds as we learn how to apply God's word to our everyday 2,018 Teton County lives.
7:34
Community Bible study started about forty five years ago, and now there are over 700 interdenominational classes in The United States, as well as classes in a 100 different countries. So CBS offers structure, consistency, excellent live teaching, all within a caring community. And I had the privilege of doing it for fifteen years where I used to live before I moved here eleven years ago. So since last fall, some of us have been pressing on toward becoming an official CBS class by, being one of 65 prayer groups in The United States. And as we know, all good Christian movements start with prayer.
8:16
Someone once asked Billy Graham, what are the keys to his successful crusades and outreaches? And this is what he said. Here are the three keys. Prayer, prayer, prayer. So every Monday morning, we're gonna include prayer.
8:33
Prayers for of praise, of confession, of thanksgiving, prayers such as, let God please send revival to Jackson, Wyoming. Let's pray for our government. Let's pray for our loved ones. Let's pray for the persecuted church. And this is a perfect follow-up ladies for the recently concluded women's study forty days of prayer.
8:56
So, my contact information is in the bulletin and I'm gonna go to the back afterwards and I'm gonna show you the study guide if you're interested and ladies, I hope to see you tomorrow morning. Thank you for your time.
9:09
Alright. Thank you, Anne. I've got one more announcement. Dave, would you come up? He didn't make the slideshow, but here he is.
9:19
Good morning. I would like to call all men, men's fellowship, participants, and men in the community in general to show up Easter morning bright and early to help prepare a delicious sourdough pancake breakfast for our lovely women of the church and for our community as a whole. So anybody who would like to help in that breakfast, please get a hold of me. You can find my phone number a number of different places so I won't give it to you now. Anyway, please get a hold of me.
9:53
Thank you.
9:54
Alright. I know it's phone number too. If you ask me, I'll give it to you. Anything else should be in the bulletin, and I think that's it. Would you all stand up and greet one another?
10:03
And if you're an introvert, just bear with us.
10:48
See the able given it all. And I come to the cross. I come to the cross. There I find all I need. Surrender my heart.
11:55
Surrender my heart. Jesus, draw me into me. You are the one I live for. You are the one that saves. You are the light that shines.
12:38
Let's sing that again. You're the one. And you are the one one I live for. You are the one that saves. You are the light that shines.
12:52
You are the Lord almighty nerd. In Christ alone, my hope is found. He's my light mastery, my song. Let's pray together. Shall we?
16:56
God, thank you that we get to to sing these truths and and how true they are. Here we are in the the the in your power. That's that's how we live a godly righteous life. It's it's not because of anything we've done. It's because of what you have done, who you are, your work, your power at work within us.
17:18
And, I just pray for more of that and more of the, the freedom and the joy that comes along with, living in you, where there's a lot of darkness. God, I pray that, you would be light through us, because the world needs more of it, and the world needs to see the hope that truly is, found in you and the power of your resurrection. In Jesus' name. Amen. You all can be seated and the frontline team is coming forward here for offering.
22:31
I'd like to ask Ray to to pray and give thanks.
22:34
Thank you for this opportunity this morning to be here and gather in your name. Lord, I pray that this group of people that are right here gathered, some are partial families, some are whole families, some that are just here by their selves themselves. Lord, I pray that you would impress upon each and everyone of us. Your godly love, your your love for us, lord, that we have been given a charge to share with the rest of the world. So, God, would you take our hearts and our minds and our words and our actions and would you use those to further your kingdom right here in this valley.
23:14
Lord, would you take the funds that are put in these plates right now at this time where we take up collection lord. We want to see your gospel go forward. I pray that you'd use the funds that are given and bless them, multiply them, bless the giver, Lord, we want for your message to go forward. The message of the cross. In Jesus name, Lord, I pray that you would bless and do your will in us.
23:44
Amen.
23:52
Before I spoke a word you were singing from me. You have been so, so good to me. But I felt
28:16
Amen. Alright, it's time for the kids. If y'all want for your kids to go downstairs, there's a kids program. Children's church is happening down there. So good morning.
28:35
How are you? Everybody's okay? Yes. Good. Powder days.
28:42
Two or three in a row. You made it. You're here. I'm glad that you're here. It was a beautiful, beautiful weekend, beautiful day out there yesterday.
28:53
I have a lot of verses to go through this morning. First Timothy, I told you last week, if you're here last week, I went through three through seven already, so they might get a light touch this morning because I already covered those last week. I'm just putting a second coat of paint on there. Okay? But it's first Timothy three through 20, and I think this is the thought unit.
29:12
You know, he's introduced himself. He's introduced his recipient in the first couple of verses, and then he goes through, and this it's a couple of paragraphs, maybe three, that help us to see what this whole letter is about. So I mentioned last week I mentioned from time to time, actually. I mentioned this. So we are shooting for the truth.
29:33
If you come from a different denominational background, you wandered into a Baptist church and you're like, oh, I can't even believe I'm here. This is not gonna be good. I'll just suffer through it. Y'all probably are thinking baptist churches are right over here in the dogmatic style of things, but you might not be. You might your experience might be that they're more existential or experience based.
29:53
I don't know. I don't know where you're from. Don't know what you believe. I don't know what your experience has been, but we're shooting for truth. That's what we're shooting for, and I want to be right there as nervous as I am.
30:02
I want to be right in the center of that. I don't want to be so experience based that it's all an appeal to your emotion that really has no bearing in scripture, but I don't want to be so dogmatic that I have picked and chosen to match up with a systematic theology something, and then this is what this church believes. These are our distinctives. I hope we don't have any distinctives except that we want to be telling the truth exactly as it is. So supernaturalistic, there are those that say all you gotta do is just give it up, let go and let God.
30:38
Well, yes, but how do I do that in this naturalistic in this natural world? How do you let go and let God so freely? There are others that say, well, you gotta pull yourself up by your bootstraps. He says that you've got to do this. He's given you salvation.
30:55
Now, you figure it out. Work out your own salvation. I think that we're shooting right in the middle of this and if you had a bad experience in the past with churches probably because they were off of the mark in one day. Do you know as a shooter shooting targets, we tend to pull one way or the other, right? Most people tend to pull down into the right, and I think dogma is one of those things that is hard.
31:21
I shared this chart with a pastor a while back, and he said, I like what you're saying here, but I don't think it's really quadrants. I think dogma is the lens through which you should see the other three, And I said, at least you know where you are. Right? You are squarely right there. Okay?
31:40
The aim. I was I thought of the shooter diagram there of the crosshair because of our last verse or one of our middle verses, the main point of last week's sermon. The aim of our charge, Timothy and Paul and mine and yours as Christians, the aim of our charge is love, God's agape love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. If you were brought up in church, you probably know what it's like to do church because you do it every single Sunday. You know exactly how things go, but is that faith your faith?
32:21
Is it a sincere faith? And do you walk in it even when you're not surrounded by other people? Do you have a good conscience? And is all of this flowing out of a pure heart because God has purified your heart. We all are sinners.
32:34
We start off life that way and we continue by choice that way and so, God can and does purify heart. He can give a good conscience because he can strengthen you to do that which you want to do in him out of your pure heart, and he can make that faith sincere and not just something that is because that's the way we do it. Okay. Christ hit the absolute center in his life and walk. He hit he was not so supernaturalistic that he was just flighty and out there, and he was in the real world and he gave people practical advice.
33:17
His experiences mattered. He had deep emotions. You can see sweat drops of blood and such but he also knew the scripture and he did not deviate from it. So that's what we're going to start out with. We're shooting for the center, and now look at those words.
33:35
I'm going to start you out with this too because Paul and Timothy, Paul had spent three years. I'm not going to really try to read all that to you and I don't expect you all to read it. This is the section that I'm about to read though. Paul had spent three years in Ephesus and I want you to hear this because it goes along with what our sermon is saying today. Now, for Militus, he sent to Ephesus and called the elder elders of the church.
33:59
He was swinging by. I gave you the maps last week. He's swinging by, stops in Miletus, not going into the town of Ephesus but he called all the elders of the church to come to him in Acts twenty seventeen and when they came to me said to them, you yourselves know how I lived among you the whole time from the first day that I set foot in Asia serving the Lord with humility and with tears and with trials that happened to me through the plots of the Jews. How I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable and teaching you in public and from house to house and testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance toward God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ and now behold, I'm going to Jerusalem I'm constrained by the spirit. I know that this is what I have to do not knowing what will happen to me there except I do know this.
34:47
The Holy Spirit is testifying to me in every city that imprisonment and afflictions await me but I do not account my life of any value nor precious to myself if only I may finish the course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus. At his conversion, right? At his conversion, he had received a commission that he would be the messenger to the Gentiles. That I may finish my course in the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. Grace, the unmerited favor of God.
35:17
That's what his message always was and now, behold, I know that none of you among whom I have gone about proclaiming the kingdom will see my face again. I don't expect to see y'all again. Therefore, I testify to you on this day that I am innocent of the blood of all of y'all. For I did not shrink away from declaring to you the whole council of God. Pay careful attention to yourselves.
35:42
He's talking to the elders, right? Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all of the flock, the other people that you're in charge over in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to care for the church of God which he obtained with his own blood. This is a precious thing that you are serving here. I know that after my departure, and this is how it lines up with this message today. I know that after my departure, fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock, and from among your own selves, elders, some of y'all who are here with me, from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things to draw away the disciples after them, making factions.
36:28
Do you get what he's saying? Therefore, be alert remembering that for three years, I did not see Snyder Day to admonish everyone with tears, and now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified. I coveted no one's silver or gold apparel. You yourselves know that these hands ministered to my necessities. He worked the whole time that he was there with them And to those who were with me, in all things I've shown you that by working hard, in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus.
37:05
He himself said it's more blessed to give than to receive, and when he had said these things, he knelt down and he prayed with them, pray, pray, pray, like Anne just said. He knelt down and he prayed with them all, and there was much weeping on the part of all, and they embraced Paul and they kissed him, and being sorrowful most of all because of the word he had spoken, that they would never see him again, his face again, and they accompanied him to the ship, so they said goodbye. Alright, so that just let that be a little bit of groundwork. This is where Paul left these people. We have no other record of him coming back through.
37:38
First Timothy three twenty. I told you last, like, last week, oh boy, theologians, come back. It's a chiastic construction. Woo hoo. I'm gonna go through it like this.
37:51
I'll highlight them so you know where we are in the message. Alright? The first thing is a charge to Timothy to oppose the false teachers. As I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, remain at Ephesus so that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine. Didn't he say when he left Ephesus or Miletus?
38:08
He said, there are going to be people who rise up. I don't know if he knew it naturalistically because he could see the look on their face. They're just waiting for him to leave or supernaturally that the Holy Spirit said, warn him, Paul. I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, remain it up so that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, not to devote themselves to myths. Myths are made up stories to get people to do what you want them to do or explain something to them, or endless genealogies which is the truth of scripture, but you can quibble over the details of it ad infinitum which promote speculation.
38:48
He said we don't want to promote speculation rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith. We do want to promote sincere faith in God. The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. So that's first Timothy three through five. That's his charge.
39:09
I'm putting you here not really as the pastor, but as the guy who's laying out how this goes. He is an overseer, a bishop, you might say. The false teachers. Next section is about the false teachers. He says certain persons, and he calls them certain persons at the beginning.
39:26
Certain persons. I call them false teachers. I warned you last week I was gonna do that. Certain persons by swerving from these have wandered away into vain discussion. Have you heard any vain discussion?
39:37
If you hadn't heard it, you have been listening. There's vain discussion all around us. Certain persons by swerving from sincere faith, good conscience, pure heart, desiring to be teachers of the law without understanding either what they're saying or the things about which they are making confident assertions. James says not, let not many of you be teachers because teachers incur a harsher judgment. You should be very careful about what you say all the time for everybody, but you should be very careful about what you aim to teach to anybody.
40:17
So that's first Timothy one six through seven, that's the false teachers. Now this is the middle part and the meat of this. It is going to be something that stands out as a contrast. Here we go, and this is a longer section. The law mishandled by the false teachers versus the way that it should be handled by the authorized doctrine.
40:40
Now, we know that the law is good. Oh, praise God. We know that the law is good. He gave the law. Elsewhere in scripture, it says, he gave the law to reveal our sin, to let us know what it is that we are how we are straying.
40:57
Really, it lets us know that we are straying and that we're in need of a savior. I think that it's going to be clear by the end of this, but it does not matter what that sin is because the law reveals it. Now we know that the law is good if anyone uses it lawfully, and it is a pun actually in Greek, the law and lawfully. He's using a namos and the word for lawfully. I like that.
41:24
They preserve that in the ESV. And we know that the law is good if one uses it lawfully, and understanding this, the law is not laid out down for just for the just, but for the lawless and disobedient, the ungodly and the sinners, the unholy and profane. Now he gives three general pairs right there at the beginning. It is lawless and disobedient, ungodly and sinners, unholy and profane. Now how do we all start out?
41:53
We all start out right here. You might be a sweet version of this, but you're still this, right? And I think he has these general pairs, and if you put them up against the 10 commandments, these three general pairs cover those four commandments. It's about your relationship with God. He's talking about lawless and disobedient.
42:14
There's somebody that must be obeyed or ungodly and sinners are unholy and profane. Most people see this, and if you don't see this and you're skeptical and you're sitting there going, I don't really see that, Ray, then look at the rest of the list in the order that it's given For those who strike their fathers and mothers for murderers, the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, and perjurers. If you look, those who strike their parents is the next one in line of the 10 commandments. Honor thy father and mother. Someone who strikes them is not honoring their father and mother.
42:49
Right? For murderers, you shall not murder. In order, you shall not commit adultery. Sexually immoral and men who practice homosexuality, both break that because sexual immorality is any sexual activity that takes place outside of the context of a marriage between a husband and a wife. You shall not commit adultery.
43:17
Next is enslavers. Now enslavers might think to you, that's not stealing, and he's putting it up against stealing, but it is stealing. It's taking someone that is a free autonomous being and it is stealing from them their freedom, and most people see this as you shall not steal because you're taking away from someone their autonomy and then selling them, profiting from it. Liars and perjurers, in order, you shall not lie. Now Paul, Saul, this great student of the Old Testament that understood well, and then when he was converted, really understood well.
43:56
He knew these and he gave these out in order when he's talking about the law is good. The law is good for revealing that we are bad and that we stand in need of a savior. Now he left off you shall not covet. Do you remember elsewhere in scripture that Paul said that he had strived and strived and strived and strived, and he had not done any of these things, but he got to covet and he was like, how do you how do you not covet? Jackson, how do you not covet?
44:23
Really? How do you not look around and go, oh, I'd really like to have that? The internal aspect of coveting was something that threw Paul. Well, he doesn't just leave it at that and not and skip it. He says this, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine.
44:42
That's the general duty clause. I used to work teaching sawmills and factories and safety programs, and OSHA said, you need to guard this machine in this way. It has to qualify by this, and then at the very end of every one of their paragraphs, said, and anything else we may deem appropriate. That's the general duty clause. There are things that are not enumerated very specifically in this list.
45:09
He's saying, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine. For him, I think that would cover, you shall not covet. So that's the way, and these are just listing types of sinners. We are all sinners. We have all sinned.
45:22
We fall short of the glory of God. There's no doubt about it. If you want it enumerated, we'll go back to this set of slides. You remember this? In Galatians five nineteen through 23, we had the fruit of the spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control, but he also gives the works, plural, of the flesh.
45:43
I know you can't read them. I'm up close enough that I can read them, and I'm going to because I don't want anybody here leaving feeling like they have self justified themselves. Okay? I really want you to know that there that the Bible is serious about holiness, but it gives the power to walk in holiness. Do you does that make sense to you?
46:03
Also, since the scripture points out men who practice homosexuality today, in our culture, it's a lightning rod to speak out against that. I'm reading what it says. Works of the flesh are evident, Galatians says. Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, bits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and general duty clause, and things like these. Next, add first Corinthians.
46:32
Sexual immorality, adultery, homosexual activity, idolatry, thievery, greed, drunkenness, reviling, and swindling. Add Ephesians. Lying, evil talking, fornication, obscene, silly, vulgar talk, empty words, disobedience. Add another place from Ephesians. Wrath, malice, slander, abusive language, quenching the spirit, despising the words of the prophets.
47:01
Self indulgence, being double tongue, conceited, filled with a morbid craving for controversy. Oh my goodness. Anger. I think there's a general duty clause that I lost in the translation there. Overt overtaken with stupid and senseless controversies.
47:29
Quarrelsome. Oh my. That one disappeared altogether. Wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, craftiness, gossips, slanderers, God haters, insolent, which means arrogant or rude, hearty, boastful, inventors of new ways to do evil, rebellious toward your parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless, lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, holy, inhuman, implacable, slanderers, profligates, brutes, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure. Okay.
48:19
I'm gonna look this way. Hypocrisy. Is anybody in here guilty of any of these things? It keeps going. After the general duty clause, the whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine, that is the hinge.
48:40
That is the splitting point for this where it turns from this is bad. He says whatever is contrary to sound doctrine in accordance with the gospel. The gospel is the good news. The bad news is we all fit those categories. The good news is God has made a way for us to escape the punishment, and he will purify our hearts as we yield our will to his will.
49:05
He does not want for us to continue in sin. Does that make sense? Whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine, in accordance to the gospel, the glory, the blessed God with which I've been entrusted. He's saying the gospel is not that you would continue to walk in these things. Testimony of a faithful teacher.
49:26
When Paul says that I've been entrusted with, he kind of loses his train of thought for a second. He'll come back but he loses it and he goes into his own testimony and here it is. He's done this a lot. We've we saw it last in Philippians. Now, I thank him who has given me strength.
49:43
You can do all things through Christ who strengthens you, right? That's Paul said in Philippians, we extrapolate. You can do it because he said, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me and he says it again here. I thank him who has given me strength Christ Jesus our lord because he judged me faithful appointing me to his service though formerly formerly past tense, right? Formerly, I was a blasphemer I was a persecutor, and I was an insolent opponent, rude, arrogant opponent.
50:14
He knew the Old Testament. He knew it well. He knew what true religion was, and it was Judaism exactly as he practiced it. Pharisaically practiced it. But he counts that all as rubbish, and he counts this as blasphemy before God because he held to something that though it was true, it was pointing to something that he did not believe Though formally, I was a blasphemer and I was a persecutor.
50:39
He persecuted the church. Jesus said, why are you persecuting me? If you're persecuting my church, you're persecuting me. Though formerly, I was a blasphemer persecutor and an insolent opponent but I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief. God is offering mercy.
50:57
He's offering grace and there are tons of people who are acting out of unbelief and ignorance. Do you believe that? Do you get angry when you think about people who are blaspheming, who are persecuting the church, and who are rude and arrogant about it. Do you get angry with it? That's exactly what Paul was.
51:21
It's exactly what we all would be if we didn't know any better. You do what you know until you know better, and then you do better. You're responsible for what you know. I think that's why it's what not many of you be teachers. I receive mercy because I had acted ignorantly and unbelief and the grace, the unmerited favor.
51:45
What did Paul, what did Saul deserve from Jesus on that road to Damascus? What did he deserve? Death, hell, and the grave. Public shame. What did he give him?
51:59
Salvation, a changed heart, a new direction, and he never forgot it. It was unmerited favor. The grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and the love that are in Christ Jesus. Now this saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am the foremost. He still saw himself.
52:31
Some thirty years later, he still saw himself as the chief sinner. There could not be anybody worse than me, Paul said. I'm the foremost, but I receive mercy for this reason. Let me go. I had these all spread out here.
52:47
Grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus, and this saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance. Doesn't that sound a little bit like whether you believe it or not? It is trustworthy, and it is deserving of full acceptance. This reminds me of our message of the cross. I come back to this over and over and over again.
53:09
This is from first Corinthians one eighteen and nineteen, and it says the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing. What does a first century Jew's death have to do with me? But to those who are being saved, God, it is the power of God. God has done an act that saves and sanctifies. So, those who are being saved, they're in the process headed towards an incorruptible hope of glory.
53:37
This saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. He said it himself. He said, I didn't come for the righteous. I came to save those who were lost. But I receive mercy for this reason, Paul says, that in me, as the foremost of sinners, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life.
54:05
Paul's saying if I'm the worst and he can save me, and he can say you're my guy to spread this message, there's a reason that he saved him. He didn't want somebody that was a little churchy, churchy, churchified little boy. Do you understand? And he was that, but that's what he saw as sin. Do you get what I'm pointing to?
54:25
I mean, he could have chosen someone who was a murderer, I suppose. Wasn't Paul going to kill Christians? Yeah. Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him no matter how bad you are, whether you're in the legalistic ditch as Paul was, or you're in the license ditch where you're going after the things that make you feel good, pleasure, things of the world, temporal stuff, Either one of those ditches, Christ is reaching on both sides to pull you up into that good old gospel way. Then Paul can't stand it.
55:12
He just has to go into praise. Doxology. To the king of the ages, immortal invisible, the only God, the honor, glory, forever and ever. Carl read that quote. I think out of the amplified Bible or something this morning, maybe the NLT before we sang glory to God forever.
55:27
It is a praise to God that he is so good and that he does still reach out with the message of the cross. It's foolishness to those who are perishing, but it's the power of God to those who are being saved. So So we've got three more verses here, eighteen, nineteen, and 20, and they it's the charge to Timothy that's repeated. Now in the charge to Timothy, he says, I'm setting you up and I'm giving you the stamp of approval on your back. He did that in the first two verses.
55:57
He did it again in the third. I charged you to remain here and to stick with it. I know that you have a pure heart, good conscience, a sincere faith, and he gives the seal of approval to Timothy. He comes back to it, and he's gonna repeat the charge again, but he also tells us who certain persons are, and I couldn't believe I was ending on this thought, but I am going to end on this thought. The twentieth verse.
56:23
The charge to Timothy repeated, oppose the false teachers, and Paul says that he does oppose the false teachers. He has to because you have to keep the gospel pure. If you add anything else to it, it's not the gospel. Does that make sense? Okay.
56:38
The charge to Timothy is right here. This charge I entrust to you, Timothy, my child. Again, stamp of approval, seal, apostolic, emissary. This is my guy. The discharge I entrust to you and they're supposed to read this letter out by the way.
56:56
They are supposed to read this letter out to let everybody know where Paul stood. That Paul, where they had all fallen down with him and cried with him as he left to go to Jerusalem not knowing anything except for he would be accosted on every side. This charge I entrust to you, Timothy, my child, in accordance with the prophecies previously made about you, that by them you may wage the good warfare. This is where we get to say, you may fight the good fight. Fight the good fight.
57:25
The good fight is to oppose those who would tear down the beauty and simplicity of the grace of God as displayed in his good gospel. Holding to faith and to your good conscience. The aim of our charge, Timothy, is love that issues from a pure heart, a good conscience, a sincere faith. Holding faith and good conscience by rejecting this faith and good conscience. By rejecting this, some have made a shipwreck of their faith.
57:56
Paul had already been involved in a couple of shipwrecks by this time too. He knows what it's like to float a night treading water, a night and a day in the sea. By rejecting this, the truth of the gospel as a central message of the church, some have made a shipwreck of their faith. Certain persons, by swerving from these, have wandered away into vain discussion among whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander. There they are.
58:25
Those are certain persons, and there are others. He says among whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander whom I have handed over to Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme. That's the end of the passage today, folks. Now we're gonna sing, and all the people said amen. That's hard.
58:47
Holiness matters. What these guys were teaching will come a little bit more evident as we go forward, but it really does matter. In an hour day, in an hour time, it's unpopular to speak out against what the Bible clearly says is sin, and I mean all of them. I don't just mean a few of them. All of those things that were listed.
59:10
There are things that are legal that are not moral. Do you agree with me? Yes. That's the biggest amen I've ever gotten. And we are to love everyone.
59:26
If we were to choose, okay, I cannot love those people. That's not what Paul's doing right here. He says the reason he's turned them over to Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme There's not love and grace and acceptance and everything on the other side of the equation. Jesus is the answer to their problem. Paul's been trying, he's been trying, he shed tears, and he's been reproving and reproving all the time he was there, but he said he had to hand those over to Satan because he could not keep on with them.
59:59
They were willfully disobedient. Okay, the safety job that I had. When in a sawmill or a factory, you know, you're supposed to, if there's one seat on a forklift, it's supposed to have one behind in it. You're not supposed to ride two people on a forklift. So I went to this place down in South Georgia, and there were two guys riding on a smoke lift, a smoke lift.
1:00:17
They were smoking in a sawmill, which is stupid by the way. Sawdust all over the place. They had both of them were smoking. Both of them were sitting there on this one seat, two behinds. Neither one of them had hearing protection on, neither one of them had eyeglasses on, neither one of them had their hard hats on.
1:00:34
Each time you see one occurrence, each one of those occurrences according to the code of federal regulations, you can charge $7,000. 7,000 for the glasses, 7,000 for the hearing protection, 7,000 for the two people being on the thing, and so I know that, and I write it up in my report when I see it. You know, listen, this could have cost you this much money. Well, turns out when I turned the report in, they got on to those guys, you know, they they made a big deal out of that. But if they had already been stopped by OSHA a few years before, so they'd already been cited for every one of those instances, they've been cited just a couple years before.
1:01:14
And so if it's a willful violation, the Code of Federal Regulation says each one of those is 10 times worse. So it's 70,000 per offense. Oh. Paul is saying there are some who are just willfully going against what they know to be true, and when they're willfully going against what they know to be true, then there's a harsh line that has to be drawn. Do you get what I'm going for?
1:01:43
I want all of us to have love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. I don't want for any of us to set things up and go, doggone it. This is my line, but there is a line, and that's what he's pointing to right here. Okay? That really is the end of the sermon.
1:02:05
That's sad. Okay. Let's go back to this. The aim of our charge is a love that issues from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith. If you're thinking, oh, I hope so and so heard this message.
1:02:19
I'm talking to you. Okay? I'm talking to you. I really am. All of us.
1:02:26
All of us are sinners in need of a savior. All of us are in need of sanctification. So in Jesus' name, Lord, would you bless us with an understanding of your will? Where we have formerly been ignorant, Lord, would you give us knowledge? Where we have been formerly willfully disobedient, would you allow us the grace, Lord, to live through the day and make a change, to surrender our will to your will.
1:02:55
Lord, for the things that you've given us the strength to repent on. I pray that we would repent. Turn today. In Jesus name, would you clean our hearts, our consciences, and maybe it may it be from a sincere faith, not just because we kind of know it, but would you give us each that sincerity of belief in Jesus name as the only way amen. Should
1:03:20
we stand up? We'll sing one more. And the people people said amen amen
1:05:58
Amen. I can always trust Blake to put a decent benediction up there because I could not see myself standing up and going, now, Hymenaeus and Alexander, get on out there. Put on the full armor of God so that you can stand against the devil's schemes. He will work on you. He will work on you, but Christ has given you the power to deny him any access.
1:06:26
In Jesus name, Lord, would you bless each one of these to go out and reflect your light, to channel your love. In Jesus' name, amen.
